You left your job!?!?

I never really thought I had a massive pull towards entrepreneurship…

In fact, it really wasn’t till this year it all came to a head.

Not by choice, either. It was by necessity.

Alright, so I had a great job. I was in management consulting, working in emerging tech. I’d somehow managed to carve a niche out for myself over the last 5–6 years in my company to become the ‘domain expert’ for all things Blockchain, Web3 and Metaverse (shudder, still hate that word) within Australia.

Great. Loved it. Super passionate about all these things.

I’d also started cultivating my global career paths. Networking with global colleagues, doing some global projects, all that good stuff.

Things were looking good. Go, Duncan! The world is your cloyster. All my bosses called me a “high performer”.

But then things started turning, I don’t know, a bit grey?

A bit like when you spend too much time looking at a painting and the colour starts to fade away.

That’s what it started to feel like. I’d hit my ‘invisible ceiling’ where I didn’t really see any exciting path upwards (or sideways for that matter).

I tried making it work. I really did.

To be fair — the market right now is also just cactus. Being a consultant in emerging tech working for a large, global 300,000+ business and trying to sell innovation to enterprise in Australia.

Yeah, no chance. It’s rough out there. No projects were landing, no contracts were being signed. I wasn’t really ‘progressing’ anymore.

Surprise. I quit.

So then, why do people leave their jobs to make close to 0 money and try to build something from scratch?

Honestly — still have no idea.😁

But here’s how I’m thinking about it:

🔷 Passion Unleashed: We’re not pressing pause; we’re hitting play. Jumping into startup land is like catching lightning in a bottle — the energy, the spark, the raw potential. It’s about trading the comfort zone for the exhilarating unknown — which…frankly is exciting and terrifying. Sometimes that’s needed.

🔷 Learning Overdrive: Who needs textbooks & courses when you’re writing your own story? Entrepreneurs take a timeout from the 9-to-5 to embrace the 24/7. From coding to marketing to product design, we’re on a crash course that doesn’t follow the syllabus — even if it all crashes & burns, there’s sooo much to learn along the way.

🔷 Innovation Playground: Lastly Innovation is our sandbox, and we’re looking to build castles. From product design to market disruption, it’s quite liberating to step back from your tunnel visioned life (or career) and recognize there’s an entire world out there.

Anyway, this felt very blue-sky / vaulting optimism (which is not my usual tone of voice) but I’m learning to lean into it. Startup life almost demands it.

Anyway.

Wish me luck.

DC :)